Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes

Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, volcanic region, southern Alaska, U.S., 265 miles (425 km) southwest of Anchorage. The valley was created in 1912 by the eruption of the Novarupta and Mount Katmai volcanoes. Its name derives from the myriadfumaroles (fissures spouting smoke, gas, and steam) that developed in the valley floor. Covering about 56 square miles (145 square km), it is now a part of Katmai National Park and Preserve.

Beginning on June 6, 1912, after five days of violent earthquakes on the Alaska Peninsula, one of the most gigantic eruptions in recorded history blasted more than 7 cubic miles (29 cubic km) of volcanic material into the atmosphere and stratosphere in a period of 60 hours. Neighbouring Kodiak Island was buried under 1 foot (30 cm) of ash, and fumes produced acid rains 370 miles (600 km) away and tarnished brass in Victoria, B.C., 1,500 miles (2,400 km) away. The high-altitude haze that became visible a few days later in Washington, D.C., robbed the northern temperate zone of an estimated 10 percent of the Sun’s heat during the summer of 1912.

The uninhabited site of the holocaust was not located until four years later, at which time the valley was alive with tens of thousands of jets of steam and gas ranging up to 1,200° F (649° C) issuing from vents in the Earth up to 150 feet (46 m) across. Over more than 40 of the valley’s 56 square miles lay a covering of ash up to 700 feet (210 m) in depth. The summit of adjacent Mount Katmai had collapsed or been blown asunder, leaving a crater measuring 3 by 2 miles (5 by 3 km) and a lake 3,700 feet (1,100 m) below the rim. A new volcano, named Novarupta, had risen in the valley, just southwest of Mount Katmai. All plant and animal life had been destroyed, and the trees on the mountainsides had been completely carbonized by scorching winds.

More than 60 years later, the fumaroles giving the valley its name numbered fewer than 12, but the region had been so scarred that in the 1960s it was used in training U.S. astronauts for moon landings.

The Mount Katmai region had been explored in 1898. It was rich in animal and plant life, though without human habitation. The explorations after the 1912 eruption were followed by extensive geologic studies lasting into the 1950s, and detailed seismological investigations continued.

Numerous hypotheses about the sequence of events that created the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes have been advanced as a result of these studies. Many aspects remain conjectural, however, and some details remain unexplained.

Geologists were long puzzled, for example, by the presence of a small amount of banded pumice, or volcanic glass, mixed in the great ash flow. The most recent theories about the events of the eruption offer a plausible hypothesis. Based on map compilations of the relative thickness of the ash layer, these theories suggest that the main, as well as the initial, activity came from Novarupta. It first exploded in a torrent of incandescent acidic lava, or rhyolite, that cascaded across the valley floor. Lava flowed also from nearby fissures. Hot gases, mainly steam from buried streams and springs, began rising through countless holes and cracks, to be augmented later by gases from the cooling lava.

Following this first series of blasts, an enormous column of molten material that had lain quiescent beneath Mount Katmai apparently found access into newly created underground fissures leading to the erupting column of rhyolite beneath Novarupta. Almost as quickly as the two lavas mingled, they frothed upward and were erupted as the hybrid pumice, which chilled quickly to preserve the marbleized effect.

It is thought that the top of Mount Katmai was demolished soon after the lava flow from beneath it began. There is evidence of volcanic activity in the crater itself, however, including a small cone, recent fumarole activity, and the fact that the lake remains unfrozen in winter.

A number of explanations have been offered for the origin of the ash flow in the valley, none of them conclusive. The relatively short duration of the fumaroles, however, is explained by their origin mainly from gases sweated out of the ash as it cooled and settled. Other details remain puzzling; for example, the only remaining fumarole activity is at a place where the ash layer is relatively thin. Certain rocks and successions of ash layers also remain unaccounted for in the presently accepted sequence of events.

Plant life was slow to return to the devastated valley. Moss and algae first appeared around some of the fumaroles, but some higher plants have begun to grow on the valley floor. The valley is unable to sustain animal life, but moose and bear may cross it from time to time.

In recent years the valley has become a popular tourist attraction, reached by bus and foot from the National Park Service Lodge at Brooks River.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen, Corrections Manager.